Field
One aspect generally relates to methods of conveying network utilization and/or congestion information from an access stratum and/or connectivity stratum to services operating at a service stratum.
Background
Today there are techniques such as wholesale services, mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), and mobile other licensed operator (MOLO) arrangements, where, for instance, a party may enter into a contract with a connectivity provider or mobile network operator to obtain connectivity services. For example, the party may enter into the contract to obtain bulk access to network services at wholesale rates.
Contracts between service providers providing services at the service stratum and connectivity providers providing connectivity at the connectivity stratum. To establish these contracts a service provider may go to a connectivity provider and may negotiate with the connectivity provider for the types of services the service provider desires. For example, the service provider may need a guaranteed minimum bit rate and guaranteed minimum bandwidth to support its service. Additionally, a connectivity provider may wish to charge higher rates when the network is congested or has high utilization (e.g., to encourage reduction of traffic during those times). Conversely, a service provider may wish to avoid higher charge rates or a congested network, for example, for software upgrades, or other services which can be postponed or routed through a different network.
Up until now, connectivity stratum and/or access stratum congestion and/or utilization information is not available to the service stratum. This has hindered operators of the access/connectivity stratum as well as service stratum providers. For instance, obtaining/providing the current load and congestion information may enable dynamic cost signaling and charging to the service stratum (and optionally the device) and also serve to perform load balancing and congestion management of the connectivity and access strata. Similarly, providers at the service stratum may benefit from obtaining current load/utilization and congestion information as this would permit them to select when software upgrades or other services should be performed over a particular network.
Consequently, a need exists to provide network utilization and/or congestion information from an access/connectivity strata to a service stratum and permit a service provider to dynamically adjust its behavior over the network.